“With Dangers Compast Round” 1660–1665conception, to the treatises Milton began from in the 1640s.^169 Like other Protes-
tants, Milton denies that good works are in any way meritorious for salvation,
defining them as the works of faith made acceptable to God only through Christ’s
merits. Milton follows Wollebius in defining virtues as good habits and as the sec-
ondary causes of good works, as well as in treating first the general virtues pertain-
ing to the understanding (Wisdom and Prudence), then those pertaining to the will
(Sincerity, Promptitude, and Constancy). However, Wollebius, Ames, and most
others discuss good works and virtues under the two tables of the Law containing
the Ten Commandments, while Milton, believing the Decalogue to be abrogated
for Christians, treats them as manifestations of charity, “the love of God and of our
neighbor, which is the sum of the law” (640). He categorizes good works and
virtues under three general heads: love of and duty toward God, toward ourselves,
and toward our neighbor. In treating the first and third of these categories he draws
heavily on Wollebius, but for the second, treated only casually in the Calvinist
manuals, he looks often to classical moral philosophy. Several manuscript pages of
Book 2 bear evidence of revision: biblical texts added, words and phrases inserted
or deleted. Also, pages dealing with issues Milton felt strongly about – idolatry, the
invocation of angels and saints, and the Sabbath – were copied over, suggesting that
they had been heavily revised.^170
Treating the virtues pertaining to worship of God, Milton first discusses internal
qualities – Love, Confidence, Hope, Gratitude, and Obedience and their opposites
- and then turns to external worship or religion (chapters 3–7). Taking up invoca-
tion and prayer, he insists, as always, on the spirit rather than the letter: sincere
internal worship is acceptable without external rites; and no special forms, times,
places, dress, or bodily positions are required.^171 Unlike severer Puritans, Milton
welcomes hymns and songs in honor of the divine name (683). Unlike the Quakers
he thinks that oath-taking in serious matters is lawful, but that wrongful vows and
sinful oaths should not be kept and that Catholic vows of chastity, abstinence, or
poverty are superstitious renunciations of goods God meant for human use (680–
1). His long discussion of idolatry has Catholic practice as its direct target: they err
in calling their images layman’s books and employ worthless subterfuges to defend
“their adoration of saints and angels” (695). He also takes up an issue vital to dis-
senting parliament members or office-holders who are now required to attend
Anglican services (the issue will be revisited in Samson Agonistes): whether it is
allowable to take part in idol-worship in the performance of some civic duty. He
cites 2 Kings 5:17–19 as apparently permitting that practice, but thinks it “safer” to
decline such gestures and to relinquish the duties that demand them (694). The
prohibition for him is not an absolute, as throughout his prose and poetry he has
redefined idolatry to pertain chiefly to internal servility in worshipping anything
that is not God. In discussing Zeal for sanctifying the Divine Name he also treats its
opposite, blasphemy, defining it here as he did in Of Civil Power from the Greek
etymology: “any kind of evil speaking, directed against any person,” including